Xerjoff

Quick answers

History of the house

For the American luxury fragrance buyer, Xerjoff is the Italian house that runs through Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. The brand was founded in 2003 in Turin (Italy) by Sergio Momo, an Italian entrepreneur with no perfumer training. Xerjoff sits in the luxury niche tier that American department-store beauty halls built up between 2010 and 2020, alongside Tom Ford Private Blend, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Roja Parfums and Creed.

The American breakthrough came with Naxos in 2015, a honey-tobacco-vanilla composition by Chris Maurice that became a Reddit niche fragrance forum favorite and pushed the Xerjoff name into the mainstream luxury niche conversation. The release coincided with the moment American buyers were rediscovering rich oriental masculines after the long austerity of aquatic and woody-citrus marines dominating the 2000s. Naxos became the gateway scent for thousands of American niche buyers and remains the brand's most-reviewed US release.

Distribution in the United States runs on two tracks. The department store track covers Bergdorf Goodman (Manhattan flagship), Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Holt Renfrew in Canada. The niche specialty track runs through Osswald NYC (the brand's most prominent Manhattan niche partner, alongside Aedes de Venustas), Twisted Lily (Brooklyn), Indigo Perfumery (Cleveland) and Luckyscent (Los Angeles). Pricing in US retail sits between 285 and 695 dollars per 100ml for the core line, with Casamorati 1888 positioned at 165 to 245 dollars (source: Business of Fashion).

The Casamorati 1888 sub-line, launched in 2010, uses the name of a Bologna-based heritage perfume house founded by Claudio Casamorati in 1888. Xerjoff acquired the naming rights and rebuilt the line as a contemporary reinterpretation. Mefisto, Bouquet Ideale and La Tosca have become the line's American signatures. The XJ Shooting Stars limited-edition line pushes into the 2,500-dollar-per-bottle territory aimed at Middle Eastern and Russian luxury collectors who also drive the US flagship buyer's tastes.

The house remains family-owned and independent, run by Sergio Momo and his children. There has been no acquisition by an American or European luxury conglomerate, unlike Tom Ford Beauty (Estee Lauder Companies) or Maison Francis Kurkdjian (LVMH since 2017). Xerjoff Group also distributes sister brands Casamorati 1888, Renaissance, Join the Club and Pikovaya Dama through a shared distribution network.

Olfactory signature

The Xerjoff signature in American luxury niche perception is Italian opulence with Middle Eastern accents. The brand leans heavily on oud, rose, honey, tobacco, dense resins (frankincense, opoponax) and rich white florals (tuberose, jasmine, orange blossom). This register reflects the influence of the Saudi, Emirati and Gulf flagship buyers whose tastes also shape what Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus stock in their luxury fragrance halls. American niche reviewers (Persolaise, a specialist perfume site top reviewers, Reddit r/fragrance) consistently flag Xerjoff as the "Italian luxury answer" to Roja Parfums and Amouage.

The brand's American writing splits across three core territories. The Xerjoff core line plays luxury opulent oriental, anchored by Naxos (2015, honey-tobacco-vanilla) and Casamorati Mefisto (2010, aromatic wood). The XJ Shooting Stars line pushes into ultra-premium oud and rose constructions priced into the four-digit range. The Casamorati 1888 line stays more accessible with floral chypre and oriental builds at department-store luxury pricing.

Three signals make Xerjoff recognizable to American luxury niche buyers:

• Luxury opulence positioning, opposite of the sober Italian niche houses (Bois 1920, Eau d'Italie) and aligned with the American luxury department store register.
• Middle Eastern-leaning compositions, the oud-rose-honey-resin axis that connects with the Gulf taste profile and informs American flagship buyer demand at Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.
• Dual line strategy, Xerjoff core at 285 to 695 dollars and Casamorati 1888 at 165 to 245 dollars, covering both the prestige and accessible luxury niche tiers without diluting brand equity.

Key characteristics

The collections

Xerjoff structures its catalog into distinct lines, each with its own olfactory point of view and price tier. The Turin house is far more than its core range: it runs a wide span of permanent and thematic collections, from the entry-level to genuine collector's pieces. Two of them stand apart as worlds in their own right: Casamorati 1888, a heraldic sub-brand that revives nineteenth-century Italian perfumery, and Oud Stars, which weds the Arabian soul of oud to the house's Italian style. The principal fine-fragrance lines are the following.

Casamorati 1888

Casamorati is not merely a line but a sister brand with its own heraldic identity, its own logo, bottles and backstory. Launched in 2010, it revives the heritage of a late nineteenth-century Italian perfume house dating back to 1888, whose name Xerjoff took up to build a contemporary reinterpretation. The line plays a classic, opulent Italian register, floral, chypre and oriental, built around anchors such as Mefisto, Bouquet Ideale, La Tosca, Lira and Dolce Amalfi. It is the most accessible entry point into the house's world, positioned below the Xerjoff core range, and that is what makes it a world apart: a Belle Epoque-inflected perfumery rather than Sergio Momo's contemporary signature.

Oud Stars

Oud Stars is the house's oud-dedicated collection, inspired by the travels of the explorer Ibn Battuta: each fragrance bears the name of a city he visited and described, from Alexandria and Zafar to Fars, Gao, Luxor and Malesia. The line weds the Arabian soul of oud to an Italian olfactory style, in dense woody, floral and oriental constructions. It is the most Middle Eastern-leaning side of the house and one of its prestige territories, much sought after by US niche collectors.

Shooting Stars

Shooting Stars gathers the house's most exclusive editions, with bottles that incorporate a certified fragment of meteorite. The line trades on absolute rarity, with precious materials and pricing that climbs into collector's-piece territory, four figures per bottle. It sits at the very top of the Xerjoff pyramid, aimed at Gulf, Russian and global luxury collectors whose tastes also shape the US flagship buyer.

Join the Club

Join the Club evokes the hushed world of members-only clubs and ultra-select lifestyles. The collection delivers comfortable, statement compositions conceived as signatures of luxurious belonging. A sister brand distributed within the Xerjoff group, it extends the house's opulent identity into a more lifestyle-driven register.

Blends

Blends grows out of Sergio Momo's vision of perfume as a living entity intertwined with other sensory elements. The line explores multisensory accords and less expected material pairings, in a more experimental spirit than the core range. It illustrates the house's refusal to lock its writing into a single formula.

Coffee Break and 1861

Two further lines round out the permanent offer. Coffee Break draws on the coffee ritual common to many cultures, turning it into warm gourmand compositions around Golden Dallah, Golden Green and Più Forte. 1861, created to mark the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, celebrates the house's Italian identity through a series of fragrances named after heroes and figures of the Risorgimento.

Notable perfumes

The Xerjoff catalog runs across more than fifty active references when totaling the Xerjoff core, Casamorati 1888, XJ Shooting Stars, Join the Club and Pikovaya Dama lines. The selection below covers the US-cited milestones, with perfumer credits published by the house and verified through a specialist perfume site. Pricing reflects current Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue retail.

Frequently asked questions

See also